Marvin E. Hobson Dr. Williamson ENGL 864 June 30, 2014 Re-Christianization and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Salt, Bitter, and Good Poetry
In this paper, I suggest that Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s profound, explicit, and bold expressions of faith are all representations and demonstrations of a level of spiritualism that women were not free to express before this period within the British Empire or the Romantic Period. Prior to this era women’s writing was masked in a limited and oppressed façade, which disallowed the amalgamation and true rendering of women’s thoughts, struggles, and abilities. As the pendulum swung from one end to the other during the middle of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s placement in history and geographical connections all help to catapult her into the presence of what some might call an authenticated example of spiritual realism, critical protest poetry, and quality writing. [definitions between spiritual realism/realism, etc….]The combination of these three elements represent what I am calling a Re-Christianization. In other words, Barrett Browning utilizes the her oppressors tools to recreate and fully adopt a new and innovative protest poetry that helps to do exactly what poetry was created to do – intellectually liberate those who ingest its principals and ideologies. In the article, “EBB; The Unknown Exegete” the author takes a critical look at EBB’s bibles and the scriptures that she annotated. This article is a wonderful document that reveals to the world EBB’s individualistic understanding of the Bible. [quote] This is a very crucial document, not only because it reveals something unique about EBB, but it allows any reader of her poetry coupled with Biblical influence to understand the separation that she makes from Christians who lived during her time, or more importantly, the Christian who undoubtedly influenced her the most, her father. Her father’s example of Christianity was riddled with hypocrisy, not yet revealed or apparent within the society, which makes EBB’s father a direct mirror or reflection of the Christian community on the verge of Enlightenment, oppressing women and Africans all over the world and even within the walls of the Mother country, Great Britain. EBB, forced to live as an invalid for the first forty years of her life, saw this hypocritical example from her father who did not allow her to leave the house and subjected her to the confines of her room, with her books, her pen, and her imagination as her only outlets of expression. Cearly, this experience serves as a double-edged sword because it is the very oppression that she endures, which allows her to produce protest poetry that speaks to the oppression of women, children, and slaves, of all heritages. Cora Kaplan does an amazing job combining some of EBB’s most potent protest poetry in one place in the anthology of Women’s protest poetry from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, entitled Salt, and Bitter and Good. At the center of this text is the poem by EBB, named, “The Curse of a Nation.”
Marvin E. Hobson
Dr. Williamson
ENGL 864
June 25, 2014
When I consider religious poetry, I automatically think of the Psalms, but that is it. I have not been introduced to poems or poetry that is in the same vein as the Psalms, which is a communication between man and God. Maybe it is because of the fear of proselytizing. I would think as well that some spoken word poetry that is directed towards God for guidance and interrogation could also be considered religious poetry. Nevertheless, the Biblical Psalms has moments when it seems to fall into and others when it falls out of a mode where the voice of the speaker is illuminated within the text. For example, in Psalms 1:1-6 which states, “Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,” the voice of a person talking is not delivered in this passage. Even if we are given an author, the author’s voice is not present. There are no pronouns to indicate that a human being, man or woman is talking, even though we know that it most likely was not a woman. For me, it seems as though God is talking in a passage such as the one mentioned above. On the other hand, there are moments when it does appear as though there is a person speaking and communicating directly to or about God, which helps the reader to supplant him/herself in the place of the author r represented voice. Instead of being talked to, as in the first passage, the reader has a chance to see or perceive through the eyes of the individual communicating to God. A wonderful example of these might be in Psalms 51:1, where David is pleading to “Have mercy upon me, O God.” Who has not wanted or needed forgiveness from or for something stupid or inconsiderate that we may have done unawares or even aware. This is what I think about when I hear the words, “Religious Poetry”
How do others talk about this? Well, do they? I am not sure if individuals outside the church or even those who do, have conversations about the Psalms or religious poetry in particular. They may talk about scripture, but the specific mode thereof are of no significance to the masses, so it seems, at least. They have specific scripture, which titillate and then they gravitate to those. The excess is forever on the fringes, waiting for someone to reclaim and interpret. One of Barrett-Browning’s most interesting poem is The Seraphim. In this poem, we find them engaging in a lively debate of what is going on in the Heavens, and, of course, on earth. Between lines 120 and 140, the couple is having a back-and-forth or exchange of ideas. Ador, one of the characters states. It is: “God, the omnipresent one. Spread the wing and lift the brow, well beloved what fearest thou?” the other angel, Zerah responds, “I fear, I fear… The fear of earth.” Ador emphatically responds, “of earth, the God-created and God-praised…” As this exchange between the two continues, it seems as though their line of conversation takes on a compatible quality. Zerah highlights what Ador does not acknowledge and vice versa. The ying and the yang are both equally represented. This is the ultimate example of love, unfolding before two angels, but the desires of man, or, in this case, and woman. We know that this is one of Barrett-Browning’s poems written before the marriage to her romantic partner, Robert Browning. Poems such as this one help me to realize and recognize that there are not that many differences between love poetry and religious poetry I would even argue that religious poetry is love poetry. It should reflect and manifest the relationship between the humanity and the spiritual being, demonstrating the former’s concerns, frustrations, ideas, ideologies, questions, and concerns; moreover, God’s omnipotence and existence within the tension and struggle is normally sought, established, communicated, and even negotiated through this poetry. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew this all too well.
Marvin E. Hobson
Dr. Williamson
ENGL 864
June 24, 2014 Love Poetry
When I think of love poetry, so many things seem to come to mind: the expression of the overwhelming joy that one feels when he/she becomes aware of the body and the way it responds to the internal and unbridled passions that he/she obtains. Love poetry contains the words which flow from a place of passion, appreciation, and respect for the other. That, I would say, is probably a more potent, often seen as naïve or novice’s perspective on the issue, albeit virtuous and, in some ways, an apparently authentic manifestation of emotion. As life happens, I think that a more mature and realistic notion of what Love and Love Poetry are - can begin to complicate the issue some because so many people and mediums hold, solely, onto the idealistic view of what Love and Love poetry should be. In other words, it should be more than just an unmediated, unbridled expression of emotion. That of course is great, but there is more to it than that, just as there is more to love than the erotic. Therefore, I say, “RELEASE THE PASSION OF the erotic, so that you can move beyond it!” That, to me, is what REAL Love Poetry is supposed to do for a writer and a reader of it… When one engages in this methodological discourse, it moves one from the erotic to the logical. After all, is that no what poetry does for us in the most classical view? I think that other people get caught up in the erotic without even trying to understand the logical, which then negates or rejects ideological views on maintaining and engaging in the performed manifestation of love. Love in itself is an innate action for which we are “hard-wired” to perform (I believe). However, we can choose to either receive or reject it. If our poetry is unbalanced or one-sided, then our performance thereof might be so as well.
With that said, I think that the erotic needs to be filtered or transformed through the logical in ways that help to preserve the erotic and maintain it through time. Our Love poetry should allow us to do this One example of this is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Seraphim. Here we have two angels, Zerah and Ador, who we find in Heaven whiles the other angels have gone to earth to witness and assist with Jesus’ work on the cross. As these two engage in a cyclical dialogue, it highlights the companionability between the two. Neither one is higher than the other; they are equal. I think that E.B.B. is trying to deliver to the reader a mediated and filtered sense of what love is through this Love Poem. As thee two angels fly, quite romantically through the heavens and at the “pearly gates” their exchange is passionate at time, but it is typically complementary. This is a virtue that may not have been as prevalent during the time period, but emerging in E.B.B, individually, and in the society or culture, collectively.
Dr. Williamson
ENGL 864
June 30, 2014
Re-Christianization and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Salt, Bitter, and Good Poetry
In this paper, I suggest that Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s profound, explicit, and bold expressions of faith are all representations and demonstrations of a level of spiritualism that women were not free to express before this period within the British Empire or the Romantic Period. Prior to this era women’s writing was masked in a limited and oppressed façade, which disallowed the amalgamation and true rendering of women’s thoughts, struggles, and abilities. As the pendulum swung from one end to the other during the middle of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s placement in history and geographical connections all help to catapult her into the presence of what some might call an authenticated example of spiritual realism, critical protest poetry, and quality writing. [definitions between spiritual realism/realism, etc….]The combination of these three elements represent what I am calling a Re-Christianization. In other words, Barrett Browning utilizes the her oppressors tools to recreate and fully adopt a new and innovative protest poetry that helps to do exactly what poetry was created to do – intellectually liberate those who ingest its principals and ideologies.
In the article, “EBB; The Unknown Exegete” the author takes a critical look at EBB’s bibles and the scriptures that she annotated. This article is a wonderful document that reveals to the world EBB’s individualistic understanding of the Bible. [quote] This is a very crucial document, not only because it reveals something unique about EBB, but it allows any reader of her poetry coupled with Biblical influence to understand the separation that she makes from Christians who lived during her time, or more importantly, the Christian who undoubtedly influenced her the most, her father. Her father’s example of Christianity was riddled with hypocrisy, not yet revealed or apparent within the society, which makes EBB’s father a direct mirror or reflection of the Christian community on the verge of Enlightenment, oppressing women and Africans all over the world and even within the walls of the Mother country, Great Britain. EBB, forced to live as an invalid for the first forty years of her life, saw this hypocritical example from her father who did not allow her to leave the house and subjected her to the confines of her room, with her books, her pen, and her imagination as her only outlets of expression. Cearly, this experience serves as a double-edged sword because it is the very oppression that she endures, which allows her to produce protest poetry that speaks to the oppression of women, children, and slaves, of all heritages.
Cora Kaplan does an amazing job combining some of EBB’s most potent protest poetry in one place in the anthology of Women’s protest poetry from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, entitled Salt, and Bitter and Good. At the center of this text is the poem by EBB, named, “The Curse of a Nation.”
Marvin E. Hobson
Dr. Williamson
ENGL 864
June 25, 2014
When I consider religious poetry, I automatically think of the Psalms, but that is it. I have not been introduced to poems or poetry that is in the same vein as the Psalms, which is a communication between man and God. Maybe it is because of the fear of proselytizing. I would think as well that some spoken word poetry that is directed towards God for guidance and interrogation could also be considered religious poetry. Nevertheless, the Biblical Psalms has moments when it seems to fall into and others when it falls out of a mode where the voice of the speaker is illuminated within the text. For example, in Psalms 1:1-6 which states, “Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,” the voice of a person talking is not delivered in this passage. Even if we are given an author, the author’s voice is not present. There are no pronouns to indicate that a human being, man or woman is talking, even though we know that it most likely was not a woman. For me, it seems as though God is talking in a passage such as the one mentioned above. On the other hand, there are moments when it does appear as though there is a person speaking and communicating directly to or about God, which helps the reader to supplant him/herself in the place of the author r represented voice. Instead of being talked to, as in the first passage, the reader has a chance to see or perceive through the eyes of the individual communicating to God. A wonderful example of these might be in Psalms 51:1, where David is pleading to “Have mercy upon me, O God.” Who has not wanted or needed forgiveness from or for something stupid or inconsiderate that we may have done unawares or even aware. This is what I think about when I hear the words, “Religious Poetry”
How do others talk about this? Well, do they? I am not sure if individuals outside the church or even those who do, have conversations about the Psalms or religious poetry in particular. They may talk about scripture, but the specific mode thereof are of no significance to the masses, so it seems, at least. They have specific scripture, which titillate and then they gravitate to those. The excess is forever on the fringes, waiting for someone to reclaim and interpret. One of Barrett-Browning’s most interesting poem is The Seraphim. In this poem, we find them engaging in a lively debate of what is going on in the Heavens, and, of course, on earth. Between lines 120 and 140, the couple is having a back-and-forth or exchange of ideas. Ador, one of the characters states. It is: “God, the omnipresent one. Spread the wing and lift the brow, well beloved what fearest thou?” the other angel, Zerah responds, “I fear, I fear… The fear of earth.” Ador emphatically responds, “of earth, the God-created and God-praised…” As this exchange between the two continues, it seems as though their line of conversation takes on a compatible quality. Zerah highlights what Ador does not acknowledge and vice versa. The ying and the yang are both equally represented. This is the ultimate example of love, unfolding before two angels, but the desires of man, or, in this case, and woman. We know that this is one of Barrett-Browning’s poems written before the marriage to her romantic partner, Robert Browning. Poems such as this one help me to realize and recognize that there are not that many differences between love poetry and religious poetry I would even argue that religious poetry is love poetry. It should reflect and manifest the relationship between the humanity and the spiritual being, demonstrating the former’s concerns, frustrations, ideas, ideologies, questions, and concerns; moreover, God’s omnipotence and existence within the tension and struggle is normally sought, established, communicated, and even negotiated through this poetry. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew this all too well.
Marvin E. Hobson
Dr. Williamson
ENGL 864
June 24, 2014
Love Poetry
When I think of love poetry, so many things seem to come to mind: the expression of the overwhelming joy that one feels when he/she becomes aware of the body and the way it responds to the internal and unbridled passions that he/she obtains. Love poetry contains the words which flow from a place of passion, appreciation, and respect for the other. That, I would say, is probably a more potent, often seen as naïve or novice’s perspective on the issue, albeit virtuous and, in some ways, an apparently authentic manifestation of emotion. As life happens, I think that a more mature and realistic notion of what Love and Love Poetry are - can begin to complicate the issue some because so many people and mediums hold, solely, onto the idealistic view of what Love and Love poetry should be. In other words, it should be more than just an unmediated, unbridled expression of emotion. That of course is great, but there is more to it than that, just as there is more to love than the erotic. Therefore, I say, “RELEASE THE PASSION OF the erotic, so that you can move beyond it!” That, to me, is what REAL Love Poetry is supposed to do for a writer and a reader of it… When one engages in this methodological discourse, it moves one from the erotic to the logical. After all, is that no what poetry does for us in the most classical view? I think that other people get caught up in the erotic without even trying to understand the logical, which then negates or rejects ideological views on maintaining and engaging in the performed manifestation of love. Love in itself is an innate action for which we are “hard-wired” to perform (I believe). However, we can choose to either receive or reject it. If our poetry is unbalanced or one-sided, then our performance thereof might be so as well.
With that said, I think that the erotic needs to be filtered or transformed through the logical in ways that help to preserve the erotic and maintain it through time. Our Love poetry should allow us to do this One example of this is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Seraphim. Here we have two angels, Zerah and Ador, who we find in Heaven whiles the other angels have gone to earth to witness and assist with Jesus’ work on the cross. As these two engage in a cyclical dialogue, it highlights the companionability between the two. Neither one is higher than the other; they are equal. I think that E.B.B. is trying to deliver to the reader a mediated and filtered sense of what love is through this Love Poem. As thee two angels fly, quite romantically through the heavens and at the “pearly gates” their exchange is passionate at time, but it is typically complementary. This is a virtue that may not have been as prevalent during the time period, but emerging in E.B.B, individually, and in the society or culture, collectively.